Darth Vader is a Good Guy

Deal with it. The horrific visage of evil incarnate that haunted the dreams of everyone under the age of 40. The icon of darkness. Even AFI, known for their ridiculous top 100 lists which are so completely out of touch had to recognize Darth Vader's powers and placed him at #3 (#2 was Norman Bates, and while I love Hitchcock...c'mon. and #1 is Hannibal Lecter, another c'mon. Our #1 villain is a guy who eats brains.... OOOOOH scary. So does every zombie in a Romero flick)

With the completion of the prequels (or as many of you call them: "The Abomination") we now have Anakin's backstory. Basically he was an ignorant spoiled little whiner. Yay! of course that sucks, but with further development it's beginning to come around (watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars cgi series to see what I mean).

Before, Vader was just "Twisted and Evil", whose only goal was to eradicate our rebel friends. He didn't need to evolve past that until the 2nd half of episode VI. We didn't need to think about his actions or his choices. But now, not necessarily from Lucas' "masterful" 6 part saga watched in order, but from the prequels as well as novels, cartoons, etc, as well as just having to live with the new movies, Vader's character starts to change.

Anakin Skywalker was a little bitch, but he was good. He always had good intentions, and even his reason for following Palpatine would be noble for anyone that was not a Jedi. 19 years of being naughty can change a man, sure, but watch his actions in the original trilogy with this little caveat:

He knows who his kids are the whole time. That's not canon, it's just musing. Things start to make sense. He is still the Emperor's right hand, he can't just say "oh hey! I'm your Daddy, let's go snag the Ice Cream truck!" So when he sees Leia aboard Tantive IV, he scolds her, like a dad would. His own daughter, a part of the Rebel Alliance. His voice even breaks a bit when he says "Take her away!"

Then an officer says "she'll die before revealing anything" to which he replies "Leave that to me" which is more or less "I'll handle my dauhgter how I see fit."

Later, after Dantooine's a bust, Tarkin says "Terminate her, immediately." but the scene cuts before we see Vader's reaction. Later, when they snag the Falcon, he says "She may yet be of some use to us" which is a sly way of protecting her without revealing himself to anyone.

It also explains his apparent glee in strangling Imperial Officers. Their loyalty to the Empire reflects his betrayal of the Jedi, and their smugness is born of his sins, so he would probably just be waiting for the chance to dust a few. Note that he rarely (and never in the films) strangles a Stormtrooper, since he was in the clone wars after all, and even though not all snowmen are clones, he may still feel some attachment, especially since they never show their faces either, like a kinship.

How about "The Force is strong with this one" during the trench run? or what about "I want them alive, no disintegrations" to Boba Fett? With the thought of Anakin, still trying in a small way to control his destiny, suddenly the usual movie cliche of the villain never killing the good guys becomes something intentional. Even in ESB when Chewie is trying to save Han from the carbon freezer (could you imagine infomercials for that thing?) Vader lowers Fett's blaster, saving Chewie who would protect Leia.

It's all just a stretch, and his motives are still unclear. We know that Vader may respect Palps, and is loyal to him wholly (till about 30 seconds before Palpatine finds himself falling down a hole) but we know that he wants to overthrow him, not solely due to the whole Sith 'Rule of Two', but to place himself as Emperor with Padme at his side. His power has waned since his skin grafts and whatnot due to his cybernetic nature, else he would take him on by himself. If Vader knows who his kids are, then maybe much of the first trilogy (at least through ESB) is him basically trying to chase and scare them into the right direction so that he can rely on their power to aid him in taking out Darth Sidious (kinda like his 'false' promise to Galen Marek, his secret apprentice).

Just some musings. Officially, Vader is still just a robo-psycho who doesn't realize Luke's his boy until ESB, but it's fun to rethink certain aspects. Kinda like in episode 4, when the X-wings go through the death star's magnetic field, the comms get all garbled, yet everyone else can send holographic images over countless billions of light years without so much as lag. It's obviously a movie, it's obviously a fuck up, but rather than point out the flaws in the magic show, it's more fun to play along.